so, here, these concerns. >> we have one set policy and that's the way to tell. but we all know. we do it according to our own morals. >> you mean, your personal feelings? >> this personal feelings and stuff, ipg the negro officer, the black officers that's here in the community, lives in the community was bringing the feelings of the black people of this community into this country. and that's the points they're trying get across. that's why conversation's got really heated. their feelings as well as people's feelings can around. >> a lot of the guys just felt they couldn't trust anybody, and so, they began to fell feel a little trust and open up more and more. some of them from session to session would open up more. >> there's one big issue. if we can't talk to the people, can't get them to understand us,

can't understand them, we can't police them. >> we don't like feeling, at least i don't like feeling like a hostile soldier walking down the street. if something like this can remedy it or help it, i think we should go ahead and help it. if it means involving some might say are radical in the power project. >> feeding of actually want you. >> the term that we make up our minds -- >> as the training neared its end, evaluation proved different results for each man, but for each, a common goal, the support of the community. to reach that goal, to gain that trust, each would come to know himself, to know the law and the community he has pledged to serve. >> got to help the situation.

>> mentioned how we were looked upon years back, wondered how we are looked upon now. >> next on reel america, the pilot district project community action is a 13-minute film commissioned by the office of economic opportunity. to document a variety of its community programs in the district of columbia. small business owners meet with police to describe their frustrations with crime and citizens ride along with police officers to observe their work and practices. the problem of heroin addiction is is exflored with a play and visit to treatment center where addicts come together to discuss their problems. the film ends with a youth cadet assists an elderly person.

>> he's a rescue from the confines of a lonely hotel room. >> quont see how it happened. took everything out of there of any value. >> washington's third police district. civilians and police. >> everything they could put in their pocket, they carried out. >> i think that the city official ps should do something. we don't have a dispute. >> if you want to do something, you have to start now. can y'all start now? >> when you solve the problem, sure, there are serious cases. >> as one resident said, the only time citizens and police talk before the project is when the citizens were in trouble and the police did most of the talking. >> we're hoping that through this pilot district project,

that you will know the services that we have available. >> yes, indeed. knock down all the -- and everything, i don't understand how they do that. >> pick up the phone and call the police. >> but i tried to be a different man and get along with them. i told them they had ruined by business and to kindly stand one side. and sometimes, they move and sometimes, they moved. >> well, you need, you need police officers to come back through there every now and thep to check your place? >> don't report them. >> i'm just saying that somebody might take it out on you as a result of the police coming. why not say i don't care to be interviewed, but there are a number of men hanging in front

of such a such place and they're a nuisance and they're disru disrupting business. >> we'll come. people have been so indocket nate d with the community that it's a bad thing to call the police. >> and we doept have to work together. we have to talk together and do a lot of things together to get people to understand that if they can't protect themselves, they're going to have to have some else to protect them and that's our job. >> for the midnight shift, may i have your last name and badge in your opinion please. >> there was a time when the only people who rode here were in police custody. the squad car marked the dividing line between life on the streets and those assigned to protect it. now, they're called citizen

riders and they're finding out what a policeman's life is like, day and night. >> you know everybody have rides a pibike is supposed to wear a helmet. >> just riding around the block. >> what did you do? >> i pulled around, come out. >> she live right here. >> you got a ticket for not having your head gear on. you want to ride anywhere, you better buy yourself a helm. >> how much this cost? >> i have no idea. you have to go to the state. >> okay. citizens will term one of the thins they needed to do to improve police services to the third district, which is over 70% black, so to recruit more

local people in. >> a cop is a vanishing breed in the third district. here in a predominantly black community, where the police force numbers 400, only 26% are black patrolmen and a much smaller number come out of this neighborhood. >> changes complexion as well. >> that's a real good reason. wow. >> pusher, hustlers and hard drugs are a daily fact of life. 80 overdose deaths a year. but as the people themselves say, statistics don't tell the half of it.

>> has the pleasure of presenting to you, the portrayal of one of the enemies of our community. cheap heroin. >> i want some dope. zpl doesn't matter what you got to do. >> you going down like that. >> i was sick a minute ago, jack. >> might not be serious, but you touch me again, i'll be full paddle. >> yeah, you would. >> you going to sell that kid that dope, man? >> dope is dope. don't want to go to school no more. >> that kid many the sixth grade. >> hey, give me some water. >> he fell out. >> man, the dope is good. >> hey, man, do something, man.

>> i don't know, i don't know! >> please don't leave me. ♪ >> whether it's on the stage or in the street, the problem is still communication. besides informing the public of the dangers of drug abuse, a project reaches out to the addicts themselves who are grant to rap. regional addiction prevention. >> what's happening with the money? >> we're told in it's the mayor's office. i have somebody trauking it down for me. >> around the community, it's a beautiful thing for crime prevention. to stop young drug addicts from going to the street and committing crimes. >> as you know, as everybody knows, we just started a program

where they come down and are becoming involved in our encounter sessions. >> we had a number of their police community groups that came through for both of the house and the shop. seems to me the big thing because we've got quite a thing going on downstairs here. >> everything is really messed up. especially kitchen. i know it's a pressure cooker. >> when you were asked to clean the sink, man, but like came off with a very hostile attitude. cursing everybody. trying to get you know -- >> when new residents seeing you do that kind of thing, kenny, it looks bad and they're going act just like you do unless you correct it. >> that's where i, i was laughing at. i didn't help in the situation.

since then, we've been trying to get together. at least i've been doing it. and -- >> this is no place for easy answers. in the words of one counselor here, we can only provide a setting, the addicts must take the initiative.phone ringing ]. >> in a city that's being a magnet for young protesters were runaways without money, food or jobs, the pilot project saw a chance to help by supporting the

switchboard all around the clock aid center. >> switchboard. yeah, hold on for a second. there are a bunch of places where you can get prefood. the free clinic offers a thing at 7:00 p.m. they give you a vegetarian diet. organic and nutritious. go to the christian house on q street from 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. >> an average week in the third district will bring up to 40 robbery, 16 aggravated assaults and a high incident of rape, arson. for those with nowhere to turn to and no place to go, there is now someone to help at the pilot project's emergency service center. >> he list at 712 park street.

he's having a problem finding housing. he's living with his sister who is ill and they don't get along we very well. >> mr. burgess, do you have a social worker. >> yes, i do. >> can you give me her number? >> 387-9666. >> and you just received a check for this month? >> gentlemyes, i have. >> do you have any money left? >> a little. >> does it make a difference if you live with a family or by yourself? >> no it doesn't. i just want to get out of my sister's house. >> at approximately 7:00 p.m. they were completely out and the only thing they have now is what they have on. >> i need a place to stay until i can move into -- >> do you have any idea how the fire start snd. >> yes. the firemen said that gasoline

was all around -- thrown all over the furniture. >> i see. mr. wiggins were you there at the time of the fire? >> at the time i was attending school. but i'm sure i know who had that done. but i'm not sure who did it for us. >> for edwin jones, iii, the corps of youth cadets mean his first job and a responsible place on the city streets. the payoff for abder dangerfield, he's a rescue of the confines of a lonely hotel room. >> how long have you been living in the roosevelt? >> 50 years in september.

it's too heavy. >> i'm going to carry it for you. do you want a steak? >> no. >> not any steak today. milk? >> a lot of us are going to school, still, you know. and some of us are dropouts, things of that nature. >> a skeptical reporter asked, what exactly is the aim of the pilot project. the answer according to one staff member, to bring the people together, whether it be in the squad car or on the street. blacks and whites, civilians and police. for the time being there can be

no large claims of success and no sure promises. only the assurance that this is a beginning. the three office of economic opportunity films you have just seen are part of the collections of the national archives and are available for viewing at their youtube channel. available online is a fourth film, the hour long documentary, "the people and the police" which depicts the three-year life of the pilot district project and shows the struggles between the police, the community and project leaders which eventually led to the

cancellation of the experiment. >> we don't need the police here. >> yes don't need all the police outside. we'll have order in the building. we'll have order. wait wait. hold it. hold it. every meeting we have called have order. the iowa state fair is happening this week in des moines with several presidential hopefuls attending. on tuesday florida senator marco rubio stops by the event to speak at the candidate soap box. we'll have that life at 11:30 eastern on c-span. later on in the day the same venue will hear from ohio governor john kasich scheduled to speak at 5:00 p.m. eastern. live coverage on c-span. in this recent associated press image within protesters in 0 oakland, california are

blocking a street in front of the police department to call attention to grand jury decisions in missouri and new york not to prosecute white police officers for the deaths of unarmed black men. next on american history tv's weekly reel america series, the people and the police, oakland, a 1974 kron-tv documentary about police brutality in the community and various strategies to reform the police department. >> almost from the day it was founded in 1848, the folks across the bay in san francisco have been making jokes about oakland. there's no there, the poet tryst is supposed to have said. oakland is no other that faceless other city across the bay. today california's fourth large es city is a booming center of art and culture.

♪ ♪ but oakland's new glom more and prosperity are not shared equally by all of its citizens. nearly half of the population are nonwhite and many are poor. they don't use the coliseum or the airport very much, nor do they hold their share of the jobs created by oakland's new industry, port and transportation facilities. ♪

♪ >> most of oakland's black and brown citizens came here from the south during word war i irk lured by recruiters for government and private industry to work in shipyards and defense plants. ♪ after the war, the shipyards closed and many factories moved to the suburbs leaving most nonwhite workers behind. technology put more worker tons unemployment and welfare lines where they were joined by farmers and farm workers forced off the land by the growth of agri business. during the '50s oakland became a stagnant getto surrounded by the

white hills of alameda county. oakland's all white police department earned a reputation for head-knocking brutality that left a well-remembered legacy of bitterness in the minds and hearts of many who lived in that time and place. >> i was growing up in the late '30s and early '40s. at that time the police department was perceived aez blue and for the most part there was extreme fear in the people at that time when the police came in the community. i remember one specific situation where several young blacks were being apprehended by the police or they went into their homes to pick them up for some alenged crime. i remember one particular police officer kicking one of the young people who couldn't have been more than 13 or 14 years old. ♪ i think that the black panthers raised a very significant issues, and that was the brutality of the police when they came into the black

community. >> the police were in the same position as most of the government, not being in fact responsive to citizen's needs. >> for many years in our opinion, in the policeman, what would characterize as a gun hold orientation. we taught them laws of arrest, search and seizure and patrol practices which could only result in an officer-oriented in a very narrow law enforcement way. as we went about, in this police department, as an operational style in the '50s and some part of the '60s of stopping people on various pretexts -- it was a mandate as it were of the police department itself. we incurred very bad relationships in our community. >> today there is a whole new relationship developing between the people of oakland's gettos

and the police. police officials hold regular meetings in the community and they are well-received. >> this is one of the greatest things i've seen in roak land in my 30 years here. i never thought i would see the day. back in '37 and '38 the police sit down and criticize you. >> it's our responsibility to get out in the community and we'll be here if you want us. i'm here to assure dwlau the men you see sitting here that work in the oakland police department will be striving to achieve a goal. they're going to take a human nis tick approach to policing. i don't care how frous traited the police officers are or the citizens, i want to see every citizen treated with dignity. >> i think they're moving away from the head knocking brutal physical approach and trying to be more public relations

oriented and hopefully more sensitive. i've seen some dramatic effects because i've been here when the case was jux that posed in very hard terms. >> in a moment, a look at how things are going in oakland these days between the people and the police. ♪ ♪ block boys don't you let the sun go down on this here town ♪ ♪ aren't you going to go to jail, boy ♪ ♪ or you mind wind up getting

dropped 6 feet down ♪ >> i joined the department in about 1965. it was very different from what it is now. i think we were a lot more aggressive there. i don't much care for the word harassment. i would say there was a time we were a head-knocking department, yeah. >> there are about 700 men in the oakland police department. an overwhelming number are white and most live in the suburbs outside the city. patrolman john dixon joined the department after a stint with the coast guard. he grew up in holster as a family man and likes his work. to this extent he's a typical oakland policeman. >> in the past there was a quota system. it wasn't down on paper. but it did exist. you were expected to write a certain number of citations and if you were a good policeman, you made a certain number of

arrests. the quota system has to result in more aggressive policemen. they had to go out of their way to find certain things. maybe they went a little far overproducing numbers in arrests in just about every way. what has happened is that chief gain said no more kwa that system, and there isn't any today, and that's fantastic. we spend more time today talking to people in a lot of situations where they probably would have gone to jail before. and i mean a lot of situations. >> prior to 1968, the mid-1960s at least, the philosophy of the department was to operate base kri as a legalistic tile of

police department. gradually into the late '60s and early '70s, we began to change style of operation into what is frequently referred to now as a service style of police department. >> george heart is oakland's new police chief. he obtained leadership of the department in 19634 when chief gain retired after 27 years on the force. >> the change came about because it had to come about to be responsive to the community. the community was saying to us, i think, that we want a police organization which services the entire community in a fair and impartial manner. and we want a police organization in which we can have confidence. >> first we'd like get you to think as well as you can about the way you looked at police work and the way of operating

before you even started recruit training. >> oakland's new policing style is a product of an unusual collaboration between the oakland police and a group of social scientists. one of these sciencists is j.w. grant. grant and his claegs had been remarkably successful in helping convicted criminals overcome their violent behavior through a process of self study. in 1969 they convinced police officials that by helping violent prone policemen study their own behavior, they would reduce the violence between the people and the police. the chief agreed it was worth a try. today the self study process is carried on by the department's conflict management section. >> at the time there was no regard to the quality of the work. it was just, you know, basically

a numbers game. >> one idea that developed early in the self study process was that of tape recording, actual confrontations between oakland police officers and potentially violent citizens. the recordings have proved invaluable in understanding how to avoid conflict and are now used the training new police officers in the art of discretionary decision-making. >> a police officer probably has the broadest powers of discretion in carrying out his pucks than any other citizen. so what we're going to do today is sit down and listen to two patrolmen as they intervene in a family dispute. we're not saying that everything they do in this tape is the right way to do it. but they made certain decisions throughout this tape. we're going to sit down and critique these bit by pit. this is an actual street incident. these are real policemen and

real people. some individual officers when they come into the recruit academy feel they're coming in to be trained to be a tremendous crime fighter. they don't realize that's only a portion of their training, a lot of it is going to be in how to deal with people, how to meet the everyday problems of the community. >> unless you're going to arrest me, arrest me. if you ain't going to arrest me -- >> i would kind of like to talk about it first. >> say, look, man. that's my wife. i'm her husband. youant got nothing to do with it. you understand me? >> calm down, man. >> don't tell me to calm down, man. >> what we're trying to provide or promote is an officer who does his job, does it well, does it efficiently, who does in fact produce but who at the same time is a very humanistic individual

who understands his familiar len and understands himself in the department. >> he's told you in probably 20 different ways what the problem is. one of the officers already has identified it. >> he wants her back but she doesn't want him back. >> i'm not tell them not to use force because there are those instances where they must use force. but also what i'm saying is there's all different ways to establish your authority as a police officer. you can establish authority by humor, you can establish it by showing concern, pure physical force is not an absolute. that's not the only way one controls a situation. >> what i need is a woman, man, but i can't seem to find myself a woman. i'm looking for it in this one right here but i can't seem to find one. i've been getting drunk every

night since i've been home, you understand. >> what's the problem? he's screaming it at you. >> seems like it might be sex. >> okay. why didn't you say it earlier. very simple thing. until he started screaming. plain old sex. >> but the oakland police do more than just talk about violence prevention in their academy classes. each time an officer must use force in the performance of his duty, it's reported to a computer and periodically the computer selects out those ausers with an unusually high number of critical incidents. they're invited to appear before a panel of fellow officers who review in meticulous detail his handling of situations that resulted in violence. >> we're asking you to be very candid with us. we're asking you to admit your mistakes. every guy on this panel has made

some of the same mistakes that you've made. none of us here are perfect. what we're trying to do is find better ways of doing things. >> the action review panel is voluntary and confidential. no record is kept and no disciplinary action is involved. an officer may sit for as long as eight hours while his peers question and analyze his actions, judgments, personaled a tuds and even his mannerisms. yet since the panels were started in 1971, no man has refused to participate. the moderator is officer bob crawford of the conflict management section. in this case the first ever filmed, the man in the hot seat is officer bernie garhart. >> the suspect had an ill he git mate child and refuses to stay home to take care of the child. he had to be subdued to be taken

into custody. oak. what happened? >> i don't remember it >> you realize that things like this are official records that can be subpoenaed into court and you can be put on a stand, being sued and somebody can hit you with a report just like that and six months later you might remember it. two years later you would be looking at the guy saying i had to physically subdue a 17-year-old girl who has only been out of the hospital for three weeks after having giving birth to a baby and i don't remember a thing about it. it it could color you looking very poorly. >> he has sat on panels before. but i think it struck him being different to be sitting in that rather than one of the other seats >> if he had a machine gun, he could have killed both of us. >> listen to what he's saying. >> i know. >> you could have had your head blown off. >> i know that. >> in his case he realized he

had a small man's con plex. he kept thinking he had to take the affirmative action in the arrest to overcome the small man thing which he doesn't have to do because he works very effectively. >> i might be wrong about what the object of the panels are. but when a person starts showing up with oun of these after another, we're supposed to look into one and i wanted to ask the question, is he one of these men -- it he's not as big in stature as some of us and it's clear in some of his remarks, does he have a small man's complex and he's taking it out on the kids. >> when i first came on i did have a size problem. i'm only 5'8". i'm not defensive about it. i don't think i am. i'm quicker to act because i'm aware of my size, especially when the person is bigger than me. >> if there was no